Walking with God – My Childhood – Part 2

 

 

P.S. If you haven’t read part 1, perhaps start there 🙂

 

Where do I start?? I grew up in a ‘Typical’ Australian family, mother, father, my sister and myself.  I was the youngest in the family.  Australia is not a very religious country, there are probably more people who don’t believe in God, or don’t attend church than there are believers/attendees at church.

 

I grew up in the Uniting Church, going to Sunday School with all the other kids in the neighbourhood. I don’t have a lot of clear memories of Sunday School, but I do remember starting in the kinder room and moving up from age group to age group.  I remember some of my Sunday School Teachers, the fact that we had a concert/play at the end of each year, we received a Christian book for Christmas and one day every month we had to go to church for family service.

 

As a family we often talked about God, sometimes we prayed, but we never said Grace or had any structure around our faith. I do know that I have always had ‘conversations’ with God, not sure exactly if it’s praying, but I know that I have always thanked God often and turned to him for support when needed.

 

Most of my parent’s families were not involved in the church and didn’t go to church or Sunday School, expect my favourite Aunty and her family, but more about her later 🙂

 

In the Uniting Church, children needed to be confirmed before they can take Communion, so when my sister was old enough to be confirmed my mother thought it was a great idea to have me confirmed at the same time, even though I really wasn’t old enough.  Before we could be confirmed we had to do a 12-week extensive bible learning class.  And looking back now, I really can’t remember anything I learnt during those 12 weeks.

 

I remember also deciding I was going to read the bible from front to back.  It started off well, think I got through the book of Genesis in no time, then just gave up. 🙂

My Mother and my Grandmother were the biggest influences on my Christian upbringing. But I find it fascinating looking back now 🙂

 

My Grandmother was born in Australia to English parents, they had just recently migrated to Australia before she was born.  She believed in God, made all her children go to Sunday School, but never attended church herself.   In her era, there was pretty much the Church of England and the Catholic Church, so if you weren’t a Catholic you were a Protestant and let me tell you, there was no love lost between those two.

 

I have always had trouble understanding why there was so much hate between religions.  As stated in part 1 of this blog, I am someone who loves everyone and believes that there is good in everyone, so I have always watched from the sidelines with fascination this ‘rivalry’ between all religions.  I mean, if you are Christian and you believe in God, then it really doesn’t matter what church you worship God in, as long as you worship God.  Well, that’s how I think anyway.

 

My Mother went to Sunday School and the made sure she attended Church at least once a month when she had my sister and she made sure we went to Sunday School every week and then went to church monthly for family service.  She had her faith, but I wouldn’t say she was overly religious if you know what I mean.  She made sure her Grandchildren went to Sunday School and now she is making sure her Great Grandchildren are also brought up in the church.

 

I remember growing up as a child often overhearing conversations between my mother and my Grandmother about different religions and their opinions of them.  They didn’t really understand any ‘non-mainstream’ religion and were maybe a bit intolerant to them, but that could have just been my interpretation as a child.

 

The concept of Tithing was also talked about often between my mother and Grandmother.  My mother always, without fail gave generously when she went to church, the amount of money she has put into offering would be quite substantial and then also in food donations to the various church charities etc. She is a true giver, but the concept of tithing was something I didn’t understand and how I interpreted my mother and grandmothers conversations, it was a bad thing that only ‘those type’ of church’s made you do. This has stuck with me for many years and until recently I didn’t understand, but now I do 🙂

 

Another thing that use to fascinate me was the fact that people would go to Church/Sunday School and then during the week be really horrible people.  I could never understand why you would go to Church and claim you are a Christian and then turn around and do the most unchristian things during the week.  I remember one time someone saying to me that you don’t have to go to church to believe in God and be a true Christian and this really stuck out for me.

 

At this stage in my life, I didn’t really understand a lot about the bible, so for me ‘being Christian’ meant that you loved everyone, treated everyone with kindness and you were never ever horrible.  So the older I got, the more upset I would get at these people who went to church on Sunday only to be mean and nasty on the other 6 days.  It was easier for me to accept mean, nasty and horrible people if they didn’t go to church than it was if they did.

 

I can still remember the day that my sister and I negotiated with our mother about not ever going back to Sunday School, we were in our early teens and felt that we were just too old for Sunday School anymore. Finally, my mum gave in and did make us go, but we still had to attend church at least once and month and we were both ok with this, cause we did believe in God and we did want to go to church, just not every week.

 

The first time I turned to God for help, reached out to him for his love and support was when I was 15 and my Nanna died, she was just 66 years old.  I felt I didn’t really have a great relationship with her, but really wanted one and then all of a sudden I couldn’t have one with her.  So I turned to God, prayed for him to keep her safe and to love her until I could get to heaven and be with her.  I prayed every night for months, increased my conversations with God during the day and even reached out and ‘had conversations’ with my Nanna.  God got me through that time and was there to support me and help me grieve. The strength of his arms around me is what got me through.

 

And so began my true journey with God, one that I influenced myself and I controlled.  There has been many ups and downs over the years and you will get to hear about them all 🙂